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Super Bowl LII
Bob Collins

Why Super Bowl LII weather worries are probably wrong

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Without a hint of irony, the Star Tribune today pegged the economic impact of the Minneapolis Super Bowl in 2018 between $80 million and $500 million. There's no indication whether the calculation includes the impact of being portrayed as a winter hell hole between now and then.

Let's step back a little bit, America. The NFL's warm-weather choices haven't been without problems.

Just ask this guy who got hit on the head with falling ice in Dallas just before the Super Bowl in 2011.

Dallas Area Hit With Snow Storm, Two Days Before City Hosts The Super Bowl
An unidentified worker is brought to his feet after getting hit by ice that fell from the roof of Cowboys Stadium after a snowstorm hit the area February 4, 2011. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images.

In 2000's Super Bowl week in Georgia, up to a half-million people were without power because of an ice storm. It became known as the "ice bowl." We don't have many ice storms in early February in Minnesota.

GEORGIA
An icy street sign on the campus of Morris Brown College shows the effects of an overnight ice storm in Atlanta Sunday, Jan. 23, 2000. An overnight storm caused power outages and hazardous driving conditions. Atlanta will host Super Bowl XXXIV on Sunday Jan. 30. Photo: Dave Martin/Associated Press

How about, Miami? What can go wrong there? An inch of rain in 2007. We could've enjoyed Prince's halftime show had we not spent the time worrying he would be electrocuted.

Prince
Prince performs during the halftime show at the Super Bowl XLI football game at Dolphin Stadium in Miami on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007. Photo: Chris O'Meara/Associated Press.

The 2012 Super Bowl, held in Indianapolis, is widely considered to be the best Super Bowl Week in the history of the game. Game time temperature: 39.

Game time temp in New Jersey, where the Super Bowl was held this year, was around 50. We're actually capable of that. It was 51 in Minneapolis on February 4, 2005 -- the date on which the 2018 game will be played. A few more years of climate change and maybe we'll get lucky again.

One more weather fact: The least snowiest month of winter in Minnesota is February.